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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Whether it's babies with handicaps or relatively healthy elderly patients, some doctors think they have the right to determine who lives and who dies. Their decisions are frequently based on "quality of life" determinations which have absolutely nothing to do with the patient's illness. These modern Dr. Mengeles play God, and unsuspecting families listen to them at their peril. Here are a few examples.

I'm happy to say a Virginia woman has founded the first state chapter of the courageous group, Mass Resistance, that has been fighting the homosexual invasion for years, especially the assault on innocent children. The head of the new Virginia chapter, Linda Wall, knows exactly what she's fighting because she was immersed in lesbianism for years. Read her testimony here.

Dr. Mark Levin morphed into Dr. Marissa Levin and is now the top health officer in Virginia. That is scary when you consider the impact this man has on policy. Not to mention the fact that he is mentally ill. Dr. Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins calls transgenderism a "disorder of assumption" and a mental illness. Here's what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Friday, January 30, 2015

"And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already...but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death." "Faith and Future," 1970

Again, note the year -- about two generations ago. And see the "terrific upheavals" we've experienced since then: collapse of the nuclear family; extensive spread of contraception, abortion, and divorce; the insanity of treating same-sex perversion as equivalent to the marital bond; poor Third World women treated as sex slaves with the first world elites buying their eggs and renting their wombs. The list of atrocities goes on and on, part of the "real crisis" that had "scarcely begun" in 1970.

What are you doing, soldiers of Christ, to bring about the "fresh blossoming?" Are you home schooling your children? Fleeing immoral practices like contraception, pornography, etc.? Fighting the abortion juggernaut? Are you speaking the truth when all around you people are embracing lies about divorce and remarriage and homosexuality?

Here's something practical you can do today to defend authentic marriage, the image of the Holy Trinity. Sign the filial appeal to our Holy Father "to reaffirm categorically the Catholic teaching that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion and that homosexual unions are contrary to Divine and natural law." See more here. Please pass this on to every orthodox Catholic you know. And pray for Pope Francis and for the Ordinary Synod. We have faith that God will protect us, but we demonstrate our faith by our actions.

Can a doctrine develop in a way that turns it on its head? Those kinds of discussions put me in mind of the insane proposition that by mutilating her body a woman can "become" a man. No-no-no! It just can't happen. But those in authority can put a spin on something so that it doesn't matter what the doctrine is because the people in the pew go with the perception that the doctrine can change (or that it is simply irrelevant).

Ah...we have been here before with contraception. Must we go there again? Must marriage be further attacked by promoting homosexuality and sacrilegious Communions?

Let's all commit to praying every day for the Ordinary Synod next fall. It has the potential to open the floodgates to further waves of dissent to unchangeable doctrines. Many clergy and laity don't really care whether the doctrine changes or not. They are perfectly happy to have people dissent from the doctrine and then they talk about the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful) whose massive dissent proves the Church should listen and change her teachings. Sorry, dissenters, it ain't gonna happen. Doctrine can no more develop from truth into error than a woman's body can "develop" (or be mutilated) from female into male.

Live in the real world. Love the truth who is Jesus Himself. Then share the truth in charity. People who love people don't let them blissfully drive off the cliff into the never-ending fire of hell.

Now here is a same-sex attracted man who has his head on straight. He recognizes himself as a man. He realizes that homosexuality is NOT his identity. Several paragraphs from his article struck me as particularly profound:

What points us to our true sexual identity is the beautiful differentiation of the body. It is for this reason that I am grateful for the wise words written by then Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986, when he said that “today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.”...

The notion of “gay celibacy” is an idea stemming from an impoverished and confused view of what chastity is all about. Chastity isn’t the same thing as sexual continence, nor is it marked by celibacy. It is about living in accordance with the truth of things, and how God made us as sexual creatures. It is about lives lived with the right relationship with reality, where we view our sexuality through the “inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.” My body is a more reliable compass than my feelings are, and it always points to my true sexual identity. As my dad wisely told me when I was a child, “feelings are important, but they don’t always tell us the truth.”

Mattson has a strong sense of what the virtue of chastity really is. Here's a quote worth memorizing, "Above all else, chastity is about the real nature of things." Everyone on the planet is called to live a chaste life, regardless of our feelings, inclinations, or state in life; so Mattson's article isn't just for those afflicted with the cross of same-sex attraction. I recommend it to everyone.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

I was pretty impressed with the final result of this Mic'D Up episode. Watch it below.

The one thing I was sorry I didn't say when Michael asked me about the history was not mentioning two important historical books. Enrique Rueda's The Homosexual Network and Donna Steichen's book Ungodly Rage. Fr. Rueda's book exposed the broadbased homosexual network that has made it so powerful beyond its numbers; Donna exposed the connections between the liberal nuns and religious orders and the feminist movement (heavily lesbian) to promote homosexuality in the Catholic Church. The dissenting nuns continue to scandalize with people like Sr. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, the dissenting nuns lobby group NETWORK, and the Nuns on the Bus.

Pass this on. People need to see what's happening and where we are going. Parents especially must protect their children! Evil always goes after the children just like Hitler did with the Hitler Youth and Lenin did with the Young Pioneers.

If you love your children don't let them be sucked into the world of virtual reality where they can choose from a menu of dozens of "genders" outside the two God created, male and female. Explain to them why two men or two women cannot "marry."

Love speaks the truth and it is clear as day that we are living in a world of lies. Give your children the tools they need to know the difference beginning with God's law and the doctrine of the Church. The true, the good, and the beautiful speak to the human heart. Satan's lies offer pleasure that soon turns into poison. The Holy Eucharist and Confession are the antidotes to the poison of the modern world.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Duh...They act like pro-abortion Democrats? Ralph McCloud is the head of the Bishops' (USCCB) Poverty program, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). McCloud has a history of actively working for pro-abort democrat buddies like Wendy Davis. God help us when this is the kind of person considered appropriate to work for the bishops national organization.

So what happens when the bishops hire pro-aborts? They lose their credibility (what little they have at this point). And don't tell me McCloud isn't necessarily pro-abortion. Advocating killing babies (or Jews, or blacks, or Catholics, or bishops) is a qualifying or disqualifying issue. If you vote for someone who advocates murdering the innocent (a high proportion being black babies I might add) then you are endorsing and enabling a monstrous evil. Please don't tell me you voted for the person because they love the poor when their solution to poverty is killing poor babies!

Let's face it, you can't be democrat today without being a radical seamless-garment-of-death kind of person who advocates abortion, the attack on the nuclear family, the travesty of same-sex unions, the atrocity of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, etc.

The bishops should fire Ralph McCloud and disband the CCHD which has funneled millions of dollars collected from the faithful to advance an agenda that attacks Church teaching. When will it end? One answer: when the money flow dries up. Boycott CCHD and educate your friends!

Thank God for courageous priests, manly priests in fact, who are willing to take on the culture in order to do something good. Fr. Illo of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco recently decided to phase out girl altar boys at his parish with the permission of Archbishop Cordileone. The usual suspects are on the attack. In this report note that the TV crew didn't interview one person who agreed with father's decision. Is that because there were none? Hardly! I suspect Fr. Illo will see an upsurge in parish attendance as orthodox Catholics see an alternative. ChurchMilitantTV began a GoFundMe donation page for the parish which has already collected over $32,000 since it was posted two days ago.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

We are a people of truth. Jesus called Himself the "truth." So how should a Catholic respond to reports about men who "become" women and women who "become" men by mutilating their bodies and taking strong hormonal drugs?

Really?

Do we call "Diego" the woman who now lives as a man and has a girlfriend "he" and "him?" Doesn't her DNA make it clear that she's still a woman in every cell of her body no matter what she calls herself?

Many Catholics today, a majority in fact even among those who attend Mass every Sunday, support the homosexual agenda. They have bought the lie that homosexual relationships are equivalent to marriage and so they support "equal rights" for two men or two women (an arbitrary number) to be able to seal the knot legally. How we got from Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best to Modern Family in just a few generations is a gay success story. Catholics, pro-lifers, and other godly folks need to understand what's happened and to realize that to be pro-life and morally on target means defending the family against all assaults, particularly the blitzkrieg ("lightning war") of the homosexual movement .

Monday, January 26, 2015

I'm taping a Mic'D Up segment with Michael Voris tomorrow that will air on Wednesday. It's called Smuggling in Sodomy. I'd appreciate your prayers for the taping and you can tune in on Wednesday to watch the program. Visit Church Militant TV to see all the programs they offer. Becoming a premium subscriber only costs $10.00/month -- a lot less than your cell phone. And it opens the door to a wealth of educational materials to learn the faith. I'm impressed with the youthfulness and orthodoxy of their employees. It gives me great hope for the future of the Church.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Why? Fr. Enrique Rueda spelled it out in his 1982 book, The Homosexual Network:

There is no question that one of the top priorities of the homosexual movement is to force a "redefinition" of the American family away from the traditional husband-wife-children model to a more "functional" definition based on the the notion of economic unit or any other basis that does not require heterosexuality as its foundation. The notion that a family must involve persons of both sexes is profoundly inimical to the homosexual movement. By their own definition, heterosexual relations are beyond their reach; thus the traditional family as a normative institution for human relations is unacceptable.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

I have a book on my bedside table that I am just beginning, Gloria Gaither's What My Parents Did Right. What a thesis! We live in a culture where everyone seems to have the finger of blame pointed at someone else. Most often that "someone" seems to be parents. I confess to having fallen into that pit many times in my younger days and I repent of it. My parents were children during the great depression, suffered through the ravages of World War II with Daddy on active naval duty, and went on to raise ten children. They experienced all the rebellion of the 60s with the younger members of the family, and suffered deeply the ravages to the Church after Vatican II. It was no easy life. I want to say thank you to them every day (I wish they were physically present so they could "hear" it from my lips.) and remember all the things they did right -- beginning with their generous openness to life.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

I support pro-life politicians. Period! The Republican Party is pathetic. They are nothing but a bunch of cowards who think pro-lifers will continue to support them as they stab us in the back again and again.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

I had breakfast with a good friend this morning, a sister of the heart. How blessed we are if we have a few of those outside our biological family. We were talking about relationships and my friend reminded me of something Father said about the people in our lives. (I think this comes from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius). There are four types of relationships:

A friend of mine wrote the article below and I think she pegs it. In the world of virtual reality, everyone can create his own avatar. An old person can become young, a male can become female or vice-versa. But it's a world of make-believe. People who actually enter into that make-believe world insisting it's real are mentally ill, psychotic in fact. The psychotic creates his own world and then tries to live in it. We not only live in a culture of death today, but a psychotic culture of make-believe. Instead of emphasizing the true and the real, many institutions (educational, political, and even religious) have entered into the psychotic's make believe world to confirm his avatar. After all, feelings trump reality and if it feels right to you, it must be right. Tell that to the next child who thinks he's Superman and wants to jump off the roof to prove he can fly.

The Twenty-Third Chromosome

by Susan Matthieson

The sex of a child is fixed at the instant of conception through the paired XY (male) or XX (female) twenty third chromosomes. God wrote male or female into our DNA genetic code like the Ten Commandments were written by His finger on Moses’ two tablets of stone – fixed, permanent and forever. Simply put, examined DNA will instantly reveal to any scientist that a particular human person is male or female.

St. Francis de Sales said, “Do not desire not to be what you are,” yet ever increasingly we read news stories about the glories of sex change operations and how happy is the new gender enhanced person being something not only that he or she never was before, but something he or she never can be, therefore never will be for all eternity.

I finished my puzzle and I'm missing a piece. Arghhhhh! I was missing two but Larry found one on the floor. I looked under the table too, but couldn't find the other one. What good is a puzzle with a missing piece when you want to glue it together and frame it?

What? Use puzzles for home decorating? Yup. And you know what? I hope to do enough puzzles to give each of my grandkids one (currently 23) when they're decorating their own places some day. Here are several that currently embellish my decor. ( We're furnished in mixed traditional and early yard sale. Works for me!)

Chickadees in the dining room near a window with a bird feeder.

This was only 350 pieces, but really different doing it in the round.

Mock headboard in the adults guest bedroom with some of the birds

who come to the feeders. (You won't see a Baltimore Oriole

or Cedar Waxwing at a feeder though.)

A trio of beautiful wolves in the granddaughters' dorm.

I may use that one day as a conversation starter about dating

Happily, while I was doing this post, my sweet husband was under the table doing another puzzle search. the piece was upside down and blending in with the rug. He announced that "Now I can say I helped with the puzzle," as he added the last piece. Ah, he always comes to my rescue! What a sweetheart. Thanks, Honey!

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Read the excerpt below and ask yourself, "Do we really want diplomatic relations with a government that commits this kind of atrocity?"

On December 19, 2014 two days after Rome, Washington and Havana simultaneously announced the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. government and the Cuban dictatorship, one of Castro’s Coast Guard ships began ramming a boat fleeing Cuba with 32 people on board, including seven women and two children, to sink the frail craft, presumably in international waters. Those Cubans were simply seeking freedom and trying to break the infamous “internal embargo” that Castro has tyrannically imposed upon its own people.

I'm currently working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle called Spring Meadow. It's not a landscape scene, more like a collage with all kinds of images from a meadow: one corner with daffodils, hearts flowers, ferns, tiny birds, a bee -- all in a glorious hodge-podge! It's been lots of fun to work on.

But I'm also reading Dietrich von Hildebrand's book, Transformation in Christ, and I'm in the chapter on recollection and contemplation. So I've been trying to practice being recollected as I go about my daily activities. I pray while I'm folding wash. "Lord bless the little visitors who slept on these sheets during the holidays and the little feet that forgot these socks under the bed....Bless this dinner I'm cooking and the guests who will share it with us."

You get the idea.

Anyway, while I was working on the puzzle after Mass, visiting a local nursing homes, and having breakfast this morning I thought about how much life is like a puzzle. You don't see everything all at once. Each of the bits is like the small and big events of our lives.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

....keep your eyes on the dog. My Christmas decorations are all still up and I am keeping close tabs on our pooch who is famous for eating anything inadvertently left on the counter. She has shown no interest in Baby Jesus so far, but I wouldn't put it past her.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

...if your father came thousands of miles to visit the country where you lived, and when he got there was too exhausted to meet with you and your brothers.... But he rested up and met with lots of other non-family members and just skipped his time with you altogether. Oh well, sons, I just couldn't fit you into the schedule because it was too full and I was exhausted.

The report of the pope's trip to Sri Lanka and cancelling his meeting with his spiritual sons just made me cry. He had time the next day to make an unscheduled stop at a Buddhist temple. Couldn't he have shortened several other events and skipped the temple stop to squeeze in at least a short time with his spiritual sons. After all, they are the face of the Catholic Church in that country.

If everybody is saved...well, God must be a sadist. Why would He send His Son to redeem us by an excruciating death when, heck, sin is no big deal. Believing that universal salvation is reasonable is incredibly unreasonable to me.

I was thinking about the theories of Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design last night and this morning I found this interesting article. Our current pope certainly believes in Evolution and the Church accepts the possibility of a God-centered interpretation of the origin of the world based on evolutionary change. It is not, however, the godless world of Darwin's evolution.

With the culture as morally polluted sexually as it is, not to mention hormonal pollution gushing into our water system, I think we will see more and more individuals with same sex attraction. After all, if fishes in our stream are being sexually deformed, do we really think birth control pills, viagra, etc. in the groundwater isn't affecting humans?

Nevertheless having a sick inclination never makes it okay to indulge in it. A person inclined to abuse alcohol or cheat on a spouse needs to resist temptation and struggle against evil just like all of us. A person with same sex attraction needs to cultivate healthy friendships and avoid occasions of sin and temptation. I thank God for the confessional where one can go and be strengthened against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Pray for those enslaved by same sex attraction. They need our prayers and our healthy friendship, but they have no business in religious life. Mike Voris is right when he says they should "get out!." But I think they stay for more reasons than undermining the faith. The priesthood for a lazy man is a cushy lifestyle. And if you have a parish with loose financial accounting, it's a great place to line your pockets and build your little retirement nest egg. Even if you don't steal outright, lots of folks will be happy to "give Father little gifts" like the use of time shares and vacation cottages. Heck, I know a priest, now deceased, who used to receive season tickets to the Redskins and a car dealer in his parish gave him an SUV. Not bad, eh?

There are plenty of priests who are working hard for their flocks and sacrificing their lives for us, but the active homosexuals are not among them. And, believe me, every diocese has them, the bishop knows about them, and he turns a blind eye. Some hide behind orthodoxy; others promote dissent, especially in sexual matters, but they all undermine the faith of their parishioners.

Pray for the clergy every day. The devil works overtime to win them to his team.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

I love Chesterton. He always makes me laugh! So here's his thought for the day:

Jesus promised the disciples three things - that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy and in constant trouble.

So...if you aren't fearless enough to proclaim the faith boldly when the opportunity arises.... If you aren't happy and able to "Rejoice in all things," as St. Paul says in Philippians 4:4.... And if you aren't in constant trouble for being a Christian....

Well...it's time to reflect on your faith and see if you are really following in the footsteps of the Master. Remember the saying -- If they brought you into court for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?

These folks are either liars or clueless (probably liars). The greatest abuse of women is abortion which tells women they can only be equal to men if they are willing to sterilize themselves permanently or temporarily. And if they "goof up" and get pregnant, they have to make themselves clean again by killing their babies. As the commie and feminazi say,

Monday, January 12, 2015

But the question is...how does one warn those wallowing in deadly sin in a way they will hear? It surely isn't the way some fundamentalist ministers do with their hate-filled, name-calling signs. People only listen to those they believe care for them. Which means we must have a heart for the greatest sinners, those most in danger of eternal death. If we don't have that heart, there is absolutely no possibility of reaching them. Today, I'm praying to have a deep sense of my own sin and a heart for those in danger of perishing in the eternal fire. I want to be a channel of grace for them that leads to repentance of sin and love for Jesus.

In fact, I want to be like the boy in the fairy tale with the golden goose.

Its golden feathers attracted people. The first person who reached out to touch the goose was caught. Then when someone touched that person he was stuck.

And finally there was a long line traveling down the road fastened to boy and his goose. All because of the attractiveness of the beautiful feathers. Like St. Francis de Sales said, you attract more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel full of vinegar. Be a honey, not a pickle!

But how can we make our appeal attractive to sinners? Pray for discernment. And then be like our Blessed Lord at the well, reaching out with love and a smile to engage the woman in adultery. Just think how exciting it would be to approach the gates of heaven with a long line of souls attached.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

I don't agree with everything that comes out of The Remnant. But this video brings up a lot of good points about the pope's criticism of those who try to follow Church doctrine faithfully while giving a pass to atheists, homosexuals, and the divorced and remarried. I also found the John Allen article that stimulated the video interesting. So here you have it: the view from both the liberal and traditional vantage points. What do you think?

Nothing, of course, can justify the murderous attack on the magazine in Paris. Christians have seen the same type of blasphemous material, e.g., a crucifix immersed in urine and images of the Blessed Mother covered in elephant dung or dressed in a bikini. Our response is non-violent protest; we don't target the "artists" for murder, although they are certainly in danger of spiritual death by moral suicide.

In the case of ‘Charlie Hebdo’, it seems that the publishers consider it a right to publish literature which is deliberately and grossly insulting to the religious sentiments of so many of its own citizens, knowing full well that it will offend and stir up religious and racial hatred. Power without moral responsibility is a recipe for disaster, and the tragic and terrible events in Paris are the result of evil provoking an even greater evil, with many blind to the evil in the cause seeing only the evil in the effect.

Evil is evil. What was the purpose of publishing the cartoons in the first place? Wasn't it provocative? And knowing the terrorist history of the "religion of peace," was the murderous response really all that surprising? You don't need to provoke a mad dog much to get a response and his bite is deadly. You should be smart enough not to do it.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Ever wonder why a group that represents so few (about 3%) manages to have so much influence? Money talks, friends, and the gay community has plenty to throw around. Think about it: two incomes, few children, plenty of extra money to fund leisure and luxury. The downside? You may be able to buy yourself political advantages like gay unions and hate speech laws, but you sure can't buy your way into heaven.

Friday, January 9, 2015

I was reading the Sunday cartoons this morning. (I know, I know, I'm behind the times.) Anyway, Barney and Clyde had an item about a student who turned in a blank paper for art class saying it was an "erased" work. The clip went on to describe a 1953 "abstract" by Robert Rauschenberg who took a valuable sketch by Willem de Kooning, a Dutch American abstract expressionist, and erased it. He titled it "Erased de Kooning." (He should have erased a few more. I nominate this ugly piece.) Erased de Kooning remained in Rauschenberg's private collection for years until being purchased by the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1998. Really, I had to check the accuracy of the comic strip; the story seemed so unbelievable. But it is, in fact, true! Anyway, if such a ridiculous "work of art" should end up anywhere, San Francisco seems most appropriate.

Rauschenberg's white period

If anyone needed another proof of the insanity of our modern age, this is it. I don't hate all modern works, but most of them can hardly be called art. My grandchildren's finger paintings show more creativity than many of them. At best, they are graphic designs, at worst they are simply ridiculous, like Rauschenberg's works from his "white period." They remind me of the "Stations of the Cross" by Barnett Newman at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. where lines on white canvas are shifted to depict each station. I remember standing in the middle of the room looking around wanting to yell, "The emperor has no clothes!"

I think Rauschenberg and Newman must be the prototype for the swindlers who conned the emperor. They sell a nearly naked canvas as an intricate artwork created for a king. Tell me that's not a con game!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

It won't be out for weeks, but the pope's encyclical on climate change is already stirring controversy. (Well, that's news, eh?) Shall we prepare for the coming document by reading what Catholic writers are saying? (We know the breathless cheerleading that will characterize the secular media.) Here are opinions on both sides of the spectrum.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized.

Well, I'm sorry to say that John Boehner won reelection as speaker. And, as usual, the teary-eyed girly man was overcome with emotion. But what really made me look around for a barf bag was his statement that, "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad."

Excuse me, reelecting a RINO who supports the biggest abortion promoter in history is a sign of the Lord's favor? I think it smacks more of Pilate's praetorium than the Lord's temple!

How many Republicans were threatened with losing their plum committee assignments? (We know at least two who are being dumped from the powerful Rules Committee for daring to oppose Boehner: Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent.) Let's face it - we know how the game is played: strong-arming your colleagues for votes, pork for the folks back home hidden in huge bills nobody reads, making promises for change that nobody intends to keep. That's inside-the-beltway politics, friends. Who cares about the grass roots? Surely not the establishment!

I'd like to think that a Republican majority will make a difference, but I've seen how the game works and I don't have much hope. But then I never put my hope in men anyway, especially feckless politicians who think souls are things you trade for earthly power and fame.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

This week's Wanderer carries an interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke evaluating the Extraordinary Synod on the Family. He points out some major problems with the outcome (no surprise to orthodox Catholics) including its giving the widespread impression that doctrine on marriage can change.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Today is the feast day of St. John Neumann, a wonderful model for what a bishop ought to be: humble, simple, zealous for souls, a teacher, a martyr for his flock. St. John Neumann was all that and more. I made a virtual visit to his national shrine in Philadelphia today, but I hope to go there for real this year. You see, one of my new year's intentions is to visit more shrines in the United States. What a wealth the country offers and some are only a few hours from my home in the Shenandoah Valley including St. John Neumann's. Two easy pilgrimage stops that could be made in tandem are the Shrine of St. John Neumann and the nearby Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, a northern suburb (where I lived for several years as a teenager).

Sunday, January 4, 2015

I just read an interesting article by Roberto de Mattei whcih seems pretty much on target in describing where we are as Church in this new year of the Lord 2015. De Mattei describes "the drama" of a divided Christendom from a historical perspecxtive:

Perhaps future historians will document that they were dancing the tango in the year 2014 in St. Peter’s Square while Christians were being massacred in the Middle East and the Church was on the verge of a schism. This frivolity and irresponsibility is not new to history. In Carthage, Salvian of Marseille records, they were dancing and feasting on the eve of the invasion of the Vandals, and in St. Petersburg, according to the testimony of John Reed, an American journalist, while the Bolsheviks were taking power, the theatres and restaurants were always packed. As Holy Scripture says, the Lord blinds those who want to be lost (John 12, 27-41).

Thursday, January 1, 2015

If the pope asks me for advice about his upcoming encyclical I'll suggest that global warming is caused by the increasing fire being stoked from the bowels of hell. Some of the devil's assistants wear clerics and are busy as can be throwing fuel on the fire. Here's one example. Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp, Belgium has come out promoting the blessing of homosexual unions. In a December interview he called on the Church to recognize the commitment of same-sex relationships in the same way heterosexual relationships are recognized. he paid lip-service to natural marriage while he undermined it in the next breath. Here's one pertinent quote:

One of the reasons the family is in such a mess can be laid at the feet of wimpy Catholics who simply would rather pay respect to human feelings than honor God's laws. Some people fear the wrath of their children and friends more than they fear the Lord. And so they go along with what their children want rather than speak the truth in charity and let the children experience the consequences.

As our oldest children were reaching high school age we saw friends whose adult children were marrying outside the Church. We observed the dilemma and the heartbreak that accompanied it, and also saw many parents supporting their children's sinful decisions saying, "What are we supposed to do -- alienate our children?" The nagging thought in my mind was always, "Would you rather alienate God?"

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Comments are moderated. Please be respectful. Argument (in the classical sense) is welcome, however crude, or obscene remarks will not be posted. I am more lenient with ad hominem attacks directed at me (no name-calling) since so many people these days don't seem to know how to engage in a discussion without them.